Jan from Critterville (sorry, no link) wrote:

Hi Guy,

I have searched many sites trying to find the best way to prepare raw Suri fleece. It is very long 6-9 inches. I believe it is too long to hand card and not damage. Using a flicker gets all the tangles out but seems to be wasted fiber. Should I have hand carded or continue? When I spin the long flicked fibers should I try and spin from the cut end or should I fold them over my finger to spin a fine yarn.
Finding general info is great but I need more details.

I love your site and blog.

Thanks a Lock
Jan from Critterville

My response is as follows:
Suri can be spun from the lock. I have never been happy with my results spinning suri from the lock, but I have heard of spinners who have made very nice yarn spinning from the lock.

I have heard of, but not tried, spinning suri from the fold. I have read about very nice yarn being made from the fold. My concern about spinning from the fold is that when I accidentally fold long suri fibers in the spinning process, I can feel the folds as poky bits in the yarn and I try to avoid folding long suri fibers.

I have heard of spinners going through a very long-staple fleece and cutting the fleece in half lock by lock so that it could be carded by conventional equipment.

I have carded long (over six inches, I don’t know about nine) suri fibers with my Ashford hand cards. The results were spinnable, but not great and I did break some fiber in the process.

I have successfully carded the same fiber on my Louet drum carder. The Louet has a larger main drum than some carders which helps with long fiber. The fiber would wrap all the way around the feed drum, so I fed it over the top of the feed drum directly onto the main drum – essentially drafting out of the lock onto the drum. After the first pass, I was able to feed it through the normal way. There was extra work involved in cleaning up the feed drum after carding, but the roving was nice. I did break some fiber in the carding process, but it wasn’t a big deal. I was much happier with the results from my Louet than from my hand cards.

I have had wonderful results blending long suri fiber with huacaya fiber. I talk about the results in my May 15th entry.

Eventually, I sent the balance of this very long fleece off to be professionally processed. The mill rejected the fiber as too long for their equipment.

Regarding your specific questions about suri fiber, my best advice is to go with what the fiber gives you. If I had the fiber in my hands, I would play with various techniques until I was happy with the yarn. Without having the fiber in hand, my thoughts are as follows:

Have you tried using the flicker to just open the tips of the locks? Don’t flick or card the whole lock, just loosen an inch or so at the tip. I think this might open the lock enough that you can draft more easily while spinning from the lock.

My preference is probably to continue carding, using either hand cards or a drum carder with an oversize drum.

As stated above, I prefer to spin from the tip when working with suri because I have poor results with folded fibers. However, if you can make good yarn by spinning from the fold, then by all means spin from the fold.

Finally, I would try to find out how Icelandic wool is processed. Icelandics are a double-coated sheep and the outer coat can get very long. I know there are special uses for this outer coat and I am assuming there are special ways to process this wool, but I don’t know what they are or if they are relevant to processing suri.

I hope this helps you, Jan, and I hope it helps others out there. Good luck with that fleece.